Lovely Toys, just north of the Qalandia checkpoint. Owner Wisam Afaneh stands at the entrance.

Lovely Toys is the key to your checkpoint destiny. It’s the kids’ store, brightly festooned with stuffed tigers, scooters, beach balls and racing cars, that sits about 200 meters from Qalandia, where the 25-foot-high wall, watchtowers and military checkpoint divide Jerusalem from Ramallah. The toy store serves commuters, and the occasional mom and her shebab at the Qalandia refugee camp across the chaotic street, reports owner Wisam Afaneh.

If your taxi or service (sir-VEECE, a collective van) gets snarled in traffic by or before Lovely Toys, you can count on a long wait in your car going south, or walking through the steel and concrete chambers on your way to Jerusalem. If on the other hand you breeze past Lovely Toys – and the boys peddling bottled water and verses from the Quran, and the squeegee men wiping the windshields of reluctant drivers, and the huge chunks of broken concrete and scattered plastic debris, and the murals of a young Yasser Arafat and the handcuffed Marwan Barghouti along the wall, and the overflowing dumpster where a dead cat has been lying belly-up, paws reaching for the sky, for the last couple of weeks – then you might just get through quickly and make your appointment in the Holy City on time.

That is, if you have a permit, or, like me, an American passport with the diamond-shaped Israeli visa stamp. (U.S. citizens with Palestinian heritage often get the square-shaped visa, along with the unambiguous “No Entry Into Israel.”)

The other day I walked through the checkpoint with a couple of American musicians, violist Peter Sulski and pianist Eric Culver, part of the annual Fete de la musique sponsored by the Ramallah-based Al Kamandjati music school. We were on our way to a performance in the Old City.

It was late afternoon. The road was like a parking lot. We bailed from our taxi in front of Lovely Toys, trekked past that rigor mortis cat, and cut through a “pedestrian terminal” filled with empty red benches, scattered trash, and a guy sitting in front of a long row of metal bars, selling water from a picnic cooler. From there we found our small corridor – a two-foot-wide, seven-foot-high steel cage that led to a floor-to-ceiling turnstile. On the other side, about 50 people crowded in front of another “iron maiden.” Besides us, it seemed everyone was Palestinian – either with a Jerusalem ID or a special permit to pass for the day.

Though it was “rush hour” – about 4pm – only one of the five entrances was open. So we stood, all clumped in one group, waiting, each in our own thoughts.

A melody in a minor key played in Eric’s head – the soprano aria from Bach’s St. John Passion. It seemed appropriate for the setting. This was his first time crossing like this, and it reminded him of his experience decades ago at the Berlin Wall.

Peter, a veteran crosser, had his thumbs on his mobile phone, making arrangements for a taxi to pick up an arriving colleague at the Tel Aviv airport. Still, he thought, imagine doing this every day. “It stops me from coming into Jerusalem for any other reason than to do what is necessary,” he would say later. “Which I think is the point, isn’t it?”

Of course, we were the lucky ones with permission to pass – most Palestinians only dream of Jerusalem, as it becomes to them an imaginary city. But Peter’s right: As Palestinian lands are confiscated in East Jerusalem, and Jerusalem IDs are routinely stripped, the energy of Arab East Jerusalem is dwindling, replaced by a vibrant life in Ramallah. Even those with the right to live in Jerusalem are now choosing to make their home on the other side of the wall, in the emerging de facto Palestinian capital.

Not so long ago, this land was much more open. ”Back in 96 it took me, Bethlehem [south of Jerusalem] to Ramallah in 25 minutes,” Peter said, breaking our reverie. That trip that now takes two or three times as long. “BMW 318. Clanky carburetor. Oh man.”

Every few minutes we’d hear a loud click, and three or four people filed through the high turnstile and through an airport-style security check. On the other side, through thick, green-tinted glass, bored-looking soldiers sat in a spartan room in front of computer terminals. One at a time, we’d press our visas or IDs up to the window, pick up our bags on the conveyer, and click through two more turnstiles, and into the light on the other side of the wall.

It was nearly dusk by the time we reached the Old City. At the Center for Jerusalem Studies, in a building and courtyard that dates back to Crusader times, plastic chairs were set up along the stones. A half moon rose behind a rooftop barbwire fence; next door, perhaps 200 feet away, the call to prayer drifted up from Al Aqua Mosque.

A few minutes later, the muezzin’s call fell quiet. In the courtyard, the chamber music began: flute, violin, viola, cello, and soprano, performing Bach and Bartok.

Kids squirmed and whispered frantically in their seats; a child called for her mom across a stone wall; someone slammed closed the metal doors of his shop. But the players carried on, their lovely music floating into the night sky above the Old City.

After the concert, the group headed back to Ramallah. I lingered a bit, sitting over a glass of wine with a friend under the grape-leaf lattice of the Jerusalem Hotel. Then I hopped a taxi back to Ramallah.

The road was early empty. We passed through Qalandia without stopping. Just north of the wall, Lovely Toys stood quiet and dark.

It was a rare, bold gesture by an Israeli toward the people of Iran: Daniel Barenboim, the famed conductor and co-founder, with Edward Said, of the West Eastern Divan Orchestra, made plans to bring the orchestra of the Berlin State Opera, which he directs, to perform a concert in Teheran. Barenboim, who features prominently in my new book, #Childrenofthestone, has not shied away from courageous personal gestures. Once, upon receiving the Wolf Prize for the Arts by Israel's Ministry of Education, he used the occasion to denounce Israel's occupation. Later, he accepted Palestinian citizenship. He is perhaps the only person to hold dual Israeli and Palestinian passports.

Predictably, the hard right in Israel (which is more and more the center), attacked Maestro Barenboim for daring to try to play music in Iran, accusing him of aiding and abetting the "delegitimization" campaign against Israel. Undaunted, he went forward with his plans. But then he ran into another group of hardliners -- the Iranian kind. They prevailed, and Barenboim was denied entry into Iran. Thus did hardliners in Israel and Iran (not to mention in the U.S. congress) effectively join hands in their successful bid to ruin a chance for soaring cultural diplomacy. Imagine if Barenboim had been allowed in on his Palestinian passport. Either way - a genuine opportunity lost. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/middleeast/article4542619.ece

Perhaps the most disturbing cost of the #irandeal lies not in the concessions that US and European negotiators allegedly made, but in the sharply increased impunity given Israel in the land-seizing and violence it visits on Palestinians under #occupation. In recent weeks during the Obama administration's fierce lobbying for the deal, the president and others have sought to assure certain Israel supporters that "sometimes even families argue." Clearly the administration doesn't want to "expend more political capital," in the Beltway lexicon, challenging Israel over its treatment of Palestinians.

Hence the unintended consequences of the #irandeal: An even freer hand for Israel's land-grabbing policies, and to advocate for greater violence against stone-throwing protestors. And much of this facilitated by the U.S., with "increased US military, intelligence, and security cooperation with Israel to their highest levels ever," as promised by John Kerry.

Already the stone-throwing Palestinian protestors, some as young as 14, face up to 20 years in prison. Now the prime minister of Israel suggests he will implement a policy to give soldiers a free hand to shoot those protestors to death.

Stand up to them by reducing the obscene amount of money, military materials and logistical support we provide?
Israel is not sensitive to international condemnation concerning these actions.
What actions can we take?

Jimmy Carter has come to the conclusion that many of us who have traveled to Palestine for many years have also determined: Israel is not interested in a two-state solution. The reality on the ground is one state -- some with rights, others without. Netanyahu, says the former president, "does not now and has never sincerely believed in a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine,” and accused him of deciding "early on to adopt a one-state solution, but without giving them [the Palestinians] equal rights."
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.671056

Sharing this wonderful review of #childrenofthestone, just published, in The Journal of Music (Ireland): "Readers of this magisterial book can make up their own minds, as Tolan presents every side of the argument sympathetically. Children of the Stone is both novelistic and scholarly... Those seeking a human interest story will find the book inspiring; simultaneously and effortlessly they will absorb a crash course in Israeli/Palestinian history, a history that involves all of us because of our governments’ failure to act decisively in the interests of #peace and #justice."
Correction: This post had earlier characterized "The Journal of Music" as a UK-based publication in error.

Friday's horrific arson attack on a Palestinian home by suspected Israeli extremists, in which an 18-month-old Palestinian toddler was burned to death, was, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared, "a terrorist crime." What he did not say was that the attack on the Dawabshe f…

Sandy Tolan reports and comments frequently about Palestine and Israel. He is the author of The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East (2006, Bloomsbury), which has earned numerous honors and has been published in five languages. He writes frequently for Salon, the Christian Science Monitor and Al-Jazeera English. Sandy and colleagues are currently at work on a 12-part series on global food security and hunger for the U.S. public radio program, Marketplace. Sandy is associate professor at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at USC in Los Angeles.